In 13 Going On 30, Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner) goes to bed an embarrassed teen and wakes up the next morning a confident and glamorous 30-year-old. I, on the other hand, woke up on my 30th birthday feeling every bit as awkward turning as I did back then (wait, so chick flicks aren’t the gospel truth?). The changes were subtle and they crept up on me rather sneakily. My body felt fuller, the texture of my skin and the colour of my hair seemed different somehow (in a less-than-happy way) and I found myself looking at my wardrobe and not completely recognising myself in its contents.
What had happened here? Wasn’t I supposed to have a
signature style by now? One that anyone who knew me would identify as solely
mine: the way I wear my hair, a favourite fragrance or even just the way I like
my coffee? And where had I been when all those greys decided to show up? It was
like puberty all over again. And I wasn’t any better at it the second time
around. I hit the panic button, of course. Overnight, I went from washing my
face once a day and pretending my skin came with inbuilt sunscreen to contemplating
experiments with nightingale droppings (it’s a geisha secret) for smooth skin.
It didn’t help that there were others around me turning 30
with complete ease. Some were getting fitter, others had gone from being style
don’ts to dos and my closest friend tells me she now feels more confident in
her skin, which reflects positively on the way she looks as well. I had no idea
what she was talking about.
So, who did I want to be? Ideally, someone like Sridevi who
seems pretty fit in her 40s and unbelievably flawless. But in a smaller, more
relatable, everyday sense, I wanted to learn to grow older like a French woman.
Ageing confidently and nonchalantly, acing mussed-up hair and smudged eyeliner,
and turning even cargo pants sexy. I went through four books (my favourites
were Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro, and Mireille Guiliano’s fitness
bible French Women Don’t Get Fat) and countless lists of ‘French Girl
Beauty Rules’, which all seemed to agree that being unabashedly yourself was
imperative; in France, the concept of peer pressure is an urban legend. Okay,
that wasn’t relatable at all.
Next, I turned to Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My
Neck, which turned out to be the perfect antidote to my bewilderment. In her
warm, familiar tone, and with empathy, she offers light-hearted perspective to
sagging necks, broken hearts, raising kids and everything in between —
“Sometimes I think that not having to worry about your hair any more is the
secret upside of death” — but she sugarcoats nothing. The cover of the
book is bare, except for a beauty product jar, which I like to think
contains hope and confidence, the two things, Ephron concludes, that any
woman needs in spades if she wants to grow older gracefully. It was time to
face the fact, namely the changes were just a part of growing older and my mind
needed to catch up ASAP.
I took my time. The old, nervy me fell away eventually in
chips and bits. Slowly, I stopped referring to the ’90s as “just a few years
ago” or reacting vehemently when the kids in my apartment building called me
the A-word. Up until this point, I never did more than the bare minimum for my
skin. But now I started making small alterations to my routine. For starters, I
dropped the bird goo idea and took my mum’s advice instead. I now start and end
my days with some TLC for my skin. I’ve settled into a skincare routine that
works for me. I don’t view it as an indulgence or a task; it’s just an
essential part of my day and one that I enjoy. I learnt to embrace the
inevitable changes and started paying a lot more attention to what I put
inside my body. I begin my mornings with the juice of two lemons and try to
limit my refined sugar intake. Physically, it’s more about being strong and fit
than just a thinner, possibly weaker, version of myself. I’ve even found an
exercise routine I love, Zumba. It helped me shed my negative body image and
more than anything, I love that exercise can be this much fun. All that cool,
torchbearing French girl wisdom was finally seeping in.
Turns out there is no novel, new answer to getting old well;
the truth is in the cliché: If you feel good about yourself, you’ll look good
too, and not the other way around. Respecting your sense of self, even if that
sense of self isn’t able to make up her mind about whether she likes her
perfume with top notes of gardenia or tuberose, is much too underrated. Maybe
giving new things a shot and not being in a habit-driven rut is what defines
me. (Also, these days I like my coffee with just a dash of butter, so there’s
that to consider.) The fact is that ten years from now we’re going to be
looking back at this very moment through a soft focus lens and feeling
nostalgic about the time our waistlines weren’t trying to keep up with our
chronological ages.
But for now we need to stop worrying and take Ms Ephron’s
advice — it’s time to slip into our bikinis and not take them off till we’re
34, at least.
